Rodney King, Your Name Will Always Be Remembered

Wow!!  Rodney King died at 47 years old, looking like he was pushing sixty!  Rodney's bad habits and poor decisions gave him a beating far worse than the one that placed him in history in 1991.

<=== In this picture,  Rodney looked like he had been chain-smoking Newports and blounts made with crack cocaine everyday for the last thirty years.  He looked like he ate fast-food morning, noon and night and washed it down with forty-ounces or half-gallon-size soda drinks.

He looked toxic.  He looked like he sweated all the time.  He looked like he had gallons of tar in his lungs.  He looked malnourished, rundown, unhealthy, beatdown.  He looked oxygen-deprived from all the cholesterol blocking his arteries.  He looked like he had hypertension.  He looked like a heart-attack waiting to happen.

When I think of Rodney King, I sometimes think of Dr. Martin Luther King and the coincidence of their last name, a name meaning leadership.  I think about their slight physical resemblance.

I think about how their lives and achievements were extreme opposites and yet they will be remembered for watershed moments in the civil rights history of the United States.  Of course, Rodney King will not be remembered as a hero or for receiving the Nobel Peace prize or for changing the course of American history.  Instead, Rodney King will be remembered as a hapless young black man who was driving while drunk, wouldn't stop when the police tried to pull him over and eventually was beaten by five LAPD, while a dozen watched.   His vicious beating served as the spark that ignited riots in South Los Angeles in protest of LAPD brutality.

King got lucky because someone was taping and sent it to the news where it eventually  became international.  He thus became a symbol for victims who get brutalized by law enforcement everyday and no one knows about it.  And he received $3.8 million dollars (he probably only got 60% of that with attorney fees and all) for his pain and suffering, from the city of Los Angeles.  Again, something most beating victims never get: monetary compensation.

But then Rodney King's luck ran out.  Unfortunately,  he was unable to live a consistent life.  He was a slave to alcohol and drugs.  He got arrested for drunk driving, domestic abuse.  He drove into a brick wall and someone's house.  He was shot in the arm, face and back by unknown assailants when he was riding a bike.  He ran red lights and stop signs and STILL would not stop for cops.

Rodney King
1965 - 2012  

Bye, Beautiful

Whitney Houston died today. Officially at 3:55 pm but she was probably dead long before that. In more ways than one. It's like she sputtered out. When she started out she was so fresh, so delectable, so young. And now that seems so long ago, so in another time and place. Whitney today is no more. Her body lies at the Los Angeles City Morgue, waiting to (or perhaps, already have) undergo(ne) an autopsy as I sit here and write this.

The greatest singer of my time has died. I don't know what drove Whitney to do what she did with her life. I have no idea why she couldn't overcome whatever she needed to overcome or what her daily environment was like. Was she hooked on pills? That seems to be the most deadly high for celebrities. Or did her heart just give out from all the years of cigarette and crack smoke? I guess it doesn't matter what made her die she is gone and it's another, new, reality without her.

They Found Some Bones Yesterday

They found some bones in Malibu Canyon yesterday and everyone thinks it's Mitrice Richardson. Park Rangers were checking a spot to see if marijuana was being grown there as in the past and came across "a skull and some bones." Later, it was reported that the bones were of a woman, and there was denim fabric near the bones.

The bones were found only 2 and 1/2 miles from the spot where she was last seen!!

Seems like the family may have heard this news the same time the rest of us did because Mitrice's mother held a press conference in front of the county morgue because she was outraged that the sheriff's department would give out details to the public before telling her first. I agree - law enforcement has been so obtuse in this case. Seems like common decency would have made the detectives call Latice (Mitrice's mother) and tell her "look, this is going out on the news but we want to give you a head's up, it might not be anything relating to Mitrice but a partially decomposed body was found this afternoon." Something like that.

I always believed that Mitrice was still in the canyon. She could have stumbled there and died or she could have been murdered but I always felt that she was in some kind of "Deliverance"-type camp with a couple of degenerates who eventually killed her. Funny thing, judging from the pic taken by a helicopter and, I assume, before the remains were removed, it appears that the remains are beside a road as if someone drove there and pushed out the body and there it laid until all its skin and flesh disappeared. It looks like there are hair and clothes (I magnified the above pic) on the remains.

I'm sure, if it is Mitrice, those law enforcement officers that have viewed the remains and clothing will already know if it's her or not. Latice is demanding to be able to view the remains and I think she should so she doesn't have to agonize while the coroner does all the testing that needs to be done. There might be hair left on the skull or shoes on the feet that could identify her. Lord, let your will be done.

Was It Worth It?

OK, I kinda/sorta understand when cultural expections make you go to the extreme. Like women getting Triple-G size implants. But when you are so poor you sleep on the floor and you pay to be made pregnant and actually bring a child into this world with the great possibility that you won't be around for the heavy lifting.

Take for instance this lady on the left, Rajo Devi Lohan, gave birth to the child she is holding in her arms at the age of SEVENTY through IVF. Now she's dead.

Marc Christian Died

Rock Hudson's last lover died in June this year. I remember him because AIDS was the big thing in the news then and Rock was the first major actor the public knew that had AIDS. Marc was a really handsome man, the kind that get sugar-daddies among rich homosexuals to keep them in money and style. It's sad that Rock Hudson didn't have any family whatsoever and all his legacy went to this hustler he had only known for short while before he died.